In Prescott, Ariz., where so many firefighters died in the deadly Yarnell Hill blaze last summer, the fire department is borrowing gadgets and tactics from the U.S. Special Forces to prevent that tragedy from happening again.

The fire that killed 19 firefighters proved so deadly in part because ofpoor communication, investigators said. So, in the year-plus since then, Prescott firefighters have been training on a sophisticated voice, data, and video-sharing system that Special Forces use when operating in difficult environments where radios might not work.

These Wave Relay mobile ad hoc network radios act as their own relay stations and are cabled to ruggedized, app-loaded tablets. Prescott Fire Battalion Chief Ralph Lucas III hopes the new gear will keep his men safe when battling raging wildfires in the future.

"Where Are You?"

In June 2013, a fast-moving brushfire trapped members of the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew in a canyon south of Prescott. Although other firefighters tried to rescue the team, the smoke made aerial observation impossible, and calls over the radio went unanswered.

"We were asking over the radio, "Where are you?'" Lucas recalls.

Last November, in response to the disaster, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) began developing the Fire Line Advanced Situational Awareness for Handhelds (FLASH), a civilian version of the system used by special operators in areas without communications infrastructure. FLASH uses a Wave Relay radio, developed by Persistent Systems, to form a mobile comms network that can bounce signals between nodes and then over and around obstacles.

This system could be a major improvement over current communication tech, which usually relies on short-range, Walkie Talkie-type radios and trunk repeaters. For firefighters on different mountains or different sides of the same mountain, working by radio is a tricky business. "Current systems require a heavy infrastructure and even then they do not mark firefighters" positions or send video and data," says Wesley Mitchell, an account manager at Persistent Systems.

The Wave Relay radio not only connects these firefighters, but also provides GPS coordinates and tethers. The tablets run software from the Digital Precision Strike Suite team at the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division in China Lake, Calif. Connected by the hi-throughput radio, these Android devices allow firefighters to track one another on a common digital map and mark important locations such as fire lines and water drop spots. They also can send photos from the field or play video feed pulled from a plane or drone.

Indeed, last August, the California National Guard deployed one such drone to help firefighters put out fires around Yosemite National Park. And NASA has used an MQ-9 Reaper, renamed Ikhana (a Choctaw word, meaning "intelligent" or "conscious"), to track fires in the West.

Watching From Afar

The Prescott fire department began testing FLASH in May, and the system impressed Lucas. "Everybody can see you, and you see everybody, and you can communicate with everybody," he says.

FLASH also can connect via gateways to cellular and satellite networks, or to the Internet. During the May exercises in Arizona, a team at DARPA headquarters in Virginia followed the action. "We were able to pick up a hand mic and talk to the airplane and firefighters. We could see their positions," Mitchell says.

FLASH is still a work in progress. The iconography in the mapping software needs to be converted from military standard to one used in fire rescue. In its current setup, FLASH is worn on the chest. That is cumbersome for firefighters, who often find themselves leaning forward or bending over, so the radio will have to put in a backpack.

Lucas is optimistic that the changes will be made soon; he wants to start beta testing in April or May 2015.

In the meantime, Mitchell is going to demo the technology for the forestry service, too. "We are now in the process of trying to get this out to more people in the field," he says.

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